Our homesteading journey hasn’t always been easy. We’ve lived without running water (not even to mention hot running water or a shower) for 2 years and have built everything on the land ourselves (with help from some friends).

The wood heated tub we used the first year to bathe in winter. Looks romantic, but it took 7 hours to heat up.

Drinking a warm beverage in the morning after sleeping outside in winter.

Our yurt, which was our main home structure, was moldy last winter due to the humidity and we slept outside all winter in our sleeping bags. We went on Discovery Channel’s Homestead Rescue and we all built a log cabin.

Wren on Homestead Rescue

Building the Cabin on Homestead Rescue

We’ve pumped and carried water a good portion of our time here and still don’t have any space insulated well enough to never freeze (winter mornings can be pretty cold in the cabin before the wood stove warms it up.)

Ini hand sawing lumber for our gazebo

And, up until last summer when we got a freezer, we didn’t have any cold food storage. We didn’t have any power until last summer either and started off hand sawing all of the lumber for the buildings and reading in the evening by inflatable solar-powered Luci lights.

Ini carrying buckets of water to water-in a recently planted tree.

Neither of us grew up this way and, though we each spent a large portion of our twenties gardening and traveling to and living at various farms, homesteads and intentional communities, there is still a huge learning curve when it comes to actually “being in charge” and living on the land.

So what keeps us in it and why did we choose to do this in the first place, you may ask?

We share all of our hardships to help anyone who may look idealistically at our life, see how difficult it can actually be. It’s certainly not easy, but we believe intimately in the lifestyle we’ve chosen. And here are a few of the driving factors.

We homestead because we believe a better world is possible, and we are committed to co-creating it. Rather than get dragged down by the atrocities that modern industrial society perpetrates, we are choosing a path where we are taking steps to create an alternative, one day at a time. When we sat down to write out why we homestead, here are some points that are close to our hearts. If you feel similarly or want to share yours motivations, please do in the comments!

Here are Some Reasons Why!

Live Empowered

We ultimately want the best life possible, one where we execute freedom of action by building, planting, crafting, creating, expressing, and exploring.

Great satisfaction after putting up the solar panels!

We want to control our lives as autonomous individuals, not as cogs in an industrial society. We homestead because we feel this is the best way to take control of our lives and express the fullest potential of our dreams and gifts. By working towards meeting our own needs, we get to decide what we really need, and how to go about getting those needs met.

Putting up the walls of the solar shed with our friends.

We also get to use ethics and values to guide our decisions and choices. There is so much beauty in the world, and we want to make our life about appreciating the natural world all around us.

Live Debt-Free

We all know when you live in a city, you have to pay for rent, parking/bus, water, electric, groceries, etc. These are your basic living expenses and it’s nearly impossible to get around paying them. We didn’t want to perpetually be lining other people’s pockets and work just to afford to live in a place, to keep working. We knew this wouldn’t make us healthy or happy or help us achieve our dreams.

Ini dancing as we get the live edge cedar on the solar shed. Step by step DIY and learning along the way!

On the land, once we bought the land, we have worked slowly and steadily, not going into debt, to built our dream piece by piece. We’ve learned how to build and gained many new skills and sometimes we don’t have the money to move forward on a certain dream, but our bills are few and we’re able to grow a lot of our food.

Our screened in porch gazebo we built with all salvaged and local materials (cost 400$)

Live Healthy

Living healthy is more than just eating good food, although you can’t get better than homegrown food.

Potato Harvest from the land

A healthy life is one that is aligned with the natural order of things, in balance with nature.

Garlic growing in an early spring snow

This includes the best quality water, eating food that’s suited to our bodies and our bioregion, breathing fresh air, enjoying top quality medicines, partaking in natural movement and living a diverse lifestyle.

Ini sowing seeds

Homesteading allows us to structure our lives to revolve around the things that matter and allows us to built in ways to make us healthier and more vibrant. There is no need for a gym when daily activities challenge, stimulate and strengthen the body. No need for stores to carry produce that can be harvested from the land and no need for doctors and pharmacists to prescribe unnatural medicines. By choosing to homestead, we are taking our health into our own hands.

A Place To Feel Safe

So often in the world, it can be hard to know where we belong and where we can unfurl and truly be ourselves. By creating our own space that we feel safe to be ourselves, we are also offering that to others. We want to create a space where our inner children can create, laugh, play and learn.

It also is practically safe because what could feel safer than having hundreds of fruit trees, medicines, nuts, and other edible plants and control over our own pure water? In an ever-shifting world, knowing we live debt-free in a home we pay no rent on is also an incredible form of security. Also living near friends we trust dearly and share/barter and grow food with is a form of security.

Live Connected to Rhythms & Cycles

Connect with natural rhythms by being in touch with the seasons, experiencing nature in new ways, getting to know wildlife, and witnessing relationships in the environment. One of the coolest things of living here is witnessing the animal life that lives all around us.

Enjoying a nearby landmark spring with a friend. Feeling close with nature!

Oftentimes human presence chases off many animals and we miss out on these encounters. I also love being in touch with the sunrise and sunset, intimately feeling the wind (although it can be a bit much sometimes) and knowing what the weather is like as I experience it every day.

Catching a beautiful glimpse of the Mayapples when they're in bloom

Making Flower Essences from Cherry Blossoms

The seasons have taken on new meaning as I am wholly immersed in them. Hibernating in winter, feeling the burst of fresh growth in spring, the incredible lush and humid summers and abundance and then die back of fall. It’s very special to live so close to these rhythms. They exist for us all, but it’s nice to feel especially close to them.

Build Strong Relationships that actually Matter

Living in sparely populated areas allows for greater freedom (no building codes, zoning, cheaper land, etc), but it also creates a need for support from those around you. Homesteading requires us to build relationships that matter; connections between humans where we are actually dependent on one another.

Butchering a goat with our friends from their herd

The myth of self-sufficiency isn’t real; rather the model of inter-sufficiency is alive and active, even if those engaged in it aren’t aware of it. The bonds between us become that much stronger as we really need each other as neighbors, and this need and dependency bring us closer together and in a way makes us more human. We are after all communal creatures.

Direct Action Toward A Better World

So often we know that things could be better in the world, but we aren’t sure how we can make a difference.

Our Composting Toilet, proving functionality can be beautiful.

Homesteading is a direct way we can tangibly affect change by growing our own food, composting our poop (and not infecting waterways or expensive and time consuming water treatment- let’s stop pooping in water, people!), empower ourselves and others, teach about Permaculture and earth-based skills, ground perennial and sustainable agriculture, build naturally, reduce our footprint, etc. It’s definitely not an easy life, but the feeling of satisfaction and meaning in it makes it all worthwhile.

A summer's harvest.

Protect a chunk of land

In a world where the earth is quickly exploited for her resources and her waterways are polluted, we are in dire need of Earth Protectors and refuges. Through homesteading and the act of buying and “owning” (though no one can own earth, truly) a piece of land, we’re able to control what happens on it and be good stewards.

Wren harvesting ashwagandha to make into herbal medicine

We can even take this a step further and leave it better than we found it. Discernment, ethical framework and prayerful education is needed to know what’s best, but we do our best and listen to understand more. It’s a process and evolution living with the land.

Bees on the land teach us so much.

Teach Others

We think of our homestead, Mountain Jewel, as a center for earth connection. We know many are hungry for a closer relationship and experience with the land and we want to be a haven for that through workshops, re-skilling, internships, sharing practical and theoretical articles on Steemit, visitors, gatherings and being a demonstration site for what is possible.

A sweat tent is one way we bring earth-based healing on our land to share with others.

It’s our vision to share earth-based wisdom and experiences with many humans!!! There are so many hungering for a different path, seeking a different lifestyle and yearning for something different than what mainstream society offers. We strive to provide examples and solutions for folks like this and hopefully raise even more questions.

Poyluck & Bonfire w/ Music w/ Friends

It is so rewarding to give ourselves to this place, to really choose a place in a generation of wanderers (of which we quality too). In choosing this place to love and call home, we now have a place to put all of our care, love and attention.

Birthday cake a friend made for Ini. We couldn't live here without em!
Our home, it’s people, land, issues, etc have become our heart home and physical home and this makes all the difference.

Steemit helps us achieve this goal- so thank you all for being such awesome people!

This post is written by a passenger of the #ecotrain, a gathering of like-minded eco-conscious folks on Steemit. Follow for more inspiration!

Do you homestead or long to get closer to the earth? What are some of your driving factors?